


You're Stealing My Heart (And Third Base)

by roryonice



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Baseball, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13433832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roryonice/pseuds/roryonice
Summary: Phil is on his University’s baseball team, and when his coach tells him he needs to play on his three year anniversary with Dan, he has to get a little bit creative.





	You're Stealing My Heart (And Third Base)

**Author's Note:**

> baseball is the only sport that i actually like (besides hockey, i suppose, since i’m a living and breathing canadian stereotype), so i apologise for all of the baseball details that you may be kind of confused about because you don’t follow the game

“Where’s Lester? The game is starting in five minutes!” Phil heard his coach shout from the dugout. He knew he should probably head over to the dugout because he’s first on the batting list and his team is batting first, but he was quite content where he was at the moment. He was currently making out with his boyfriend, Dan, behind the dugout. Dan was pressed up against the stone wall of the building with his hands threaded into Phil’s hair and his chin tilted up into the kiss. Phil’s hands were on Dan’s ass (honestly when were they not these days) and his body was flush against his boyfriend’s.

PJ, one of the best players on the team and Phil’s best friend, came around the side of the dugout to search for the missing player. When PJ caught sight of the pair kissing, he rolled his eyes as far back into his head as he could manage. “Lester, stop snogging your boyfriend and get back to the field. We have a game to play,” PJ sighed, exasperated. This wasn’t the first time this type of thing had happened; more often than not Phil was absent right before the game was due to start because he was off somewhere with Dan.

Dan and Phil both jumped away from each other when they heard PJ’s voice. Dan’s face was bright pink when he realised that he had been caught kissing his boyfriend. He wasn’t embarrassed about being with Phil in the slightest, but he always became rather flustered when caught in an intimate act with the other man, or anyone really.

“Shit, sorry,” Phil said when he was jolted back into the reality of having to play a baseball game in about two and a half minutes. Directing his attention back to his boyfriend for a moment, Phil gave Dan one last kiss on the cheek before jogging off back to the dugout with PJ.

Dan watched as Phil jogged off to join his team. He supposed he should feel kind of bad for being the reason that Phil was always nearly late to his games, but he didn’t really. His and Phil’s schedules clashed this semester, but neither of them had classes on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, so they liked to spend time with one another after their classes were over. Unfortunately, Phil had baseball games every week on these days, so they had to squeeze in their time together before his games and they didn’t do a very good job at managing their time.

Dan grabbed his bag, which had been discarded on the ground when he and Phil had started kissing, and he made his way over to his usual spot on the front row of the bleachers. He took out his Advanced Geography textbook with the intention of studying, but once the players began to make their way onto the field he abandoned his homework to watch. He wanted to make sure that he didn’t miss any good parts of the game because Phil tended to want to talk about the game after it had ended, and Dan didn’t want to be in the dark and not know what Phil was talking about.

Phil was up to bat first. Dan wanted to shout and cheer him on, but he knew that Phil didn’t like it when he did that at the beginning of the game because it made him more nervous. Dan usually waited until the third inning to cheer because by then Phil was ‘in the zone’ and the cheering boosted his confidence.

Phil missed the first ball that was pitched to him, but that was to be expected as it was the first pitch of the game and he needed to warm up. Phil dropped his arms and swung the bat around by his knees to loosen up his shoulders as he adjusted his stance and prepared for the next pitch. He brought his bat up and nodded at the pitcher to signal that he was ready.

The pitcher spit on the baseball in his hand, which Phil always found gross. He drew back his hand and flung the ball forward. It was a very good pitch, very fast and curving at the end, but Phil still managed to hit it. Even though Phil wouldn’t admit it, he was the best batter on the team and everyone knew it.

After connecting with the bat, the ball sailed towards the outfield, narrowly missing the second baseman’s glove and landing on the grass in right field. By the time the ball had landed, Phil was rounding first base and heading to second. The outfielder positioned in right field raced towards the ball and Phil had to decide whether to stay at second base or go for third.

He had just touched second base as the right fielder had picked up the ball, so Phil went for third. The right fielder threw the ball to the player at third, but the third baseman had to lunge away from the base to catch the ball. Phil was almost at third base when the third baseman caught the ball. Phil dropped to the ground and slid to third base, his momentum carrying him to the base a split second before the other player reached it to strike him out.

“Safe!” the umpire called out. A chorus of cheers from Phil teammates and the crowd followed the umpire’s call and Phil smiled. He got up and brushed off his gray baseball pants, making sure to keep his foot on the base. The commentator in the box was talking a mile a minute, but Phil didn’t really register what he was saying due to the adrenaline rushing through his body. He looked over to the bleachers where Dan was sitting. Dan was smiling so big that his face may split in half and he gave Phil a thumbs up. Phil smiled and gave a thumbs up back before returning his attention to the game.

***

It was the bottom of the ninth inning and Phil was about to go up to bat. They hadn’t been through the full batting list yet, but it was nearly the end of the game and Phil team was 3 points behind, so Phil’s coach had put him in in hopes of him hitting at least a double. The bases were loaded, so if he hit a double then their team would score two points and there would be a player on second and third base, so as long as the person who was after him didn’t strike out they’d at least tie the game.

As Phil walked up to the plate, Dan cheered him on. Phil turned around and blew him a kiss and smiled. The commentator remarked, “Number 10, Phil Lester, blowing a kiss to his sweetheart in the crowd. What a charmer!” Phil smiled and blushed, looking at the ground while the crowd cheered and his teammates wolf whistled.

“You should have seen them making out before the game!” PJ shouted from first base. Everyone laughed at that, including Phil.

Once everyone had settled down, the game resumed. The opposing team had changed pitchers several times throughout the game, and the current pitcher gave Phil a mean look before winding up and pitching the ball. It was a bad pitch and ended up outside of home plate, so Phil didn’t swing and the umpire called “Ball!” The next two pitches were the same way, and Phil was up to three balls (note: a ‘ball’ is when the baseball isn’t pitched over the centre of home plate like it’s supposed to be, so if the batter doesn’t swing then it’s not a strike) and if he were to get one more then we would be walked to first base and his team wouldn’t get all of the points they need.

Phil said a silent prayer for the next pitch to be good, although even if it wasn’t good he would still swing. He didn’t have any strikes, so he could get more chances for a good pitch if he took two strikes and hit the third one. The pitcher took a deep breath and looked directly into Phil’s eyes as he wound up. Phil broke their eye contact when the ball was pitched, though.

It seemed to be a good pitch, so Phil swung when the ball was close enough. He didn’t wait to see where the ball was going; he just dropped the bat and started running. As he was running towards first base, he looked up to see the ball streaking towards the fence. The outfielders were chasing after it desperately, and Phil took the initiative to run faster. His teammates on base were doing the same, and it wasn’t until Phil was nearly to third base that someone had grabbed the ball. As Phil was rounding third the ball was thrown from the outfield to second base. He knew the second baseman would throw it to the catcher, and he was running a big risk of being tagged, so he slid into home just before the catcher did the same.

“Safe!” the umpire shouted, causing screams of both approval and dismay from everyone in the crowd. The game was paused as the coach from the opposing team questioned the umpire’s call. Phil was assured that he was safe by his coach as he made his way back to the dugout. Phil knew that he had made it in time and so did everyone else, so he wasn’t worried.

The consensus that Phil was safe was shortly reached and the game continued, even though Phil’s team was sure to win. They had gained four points thanks to his home run, so they were now up a point. The batter after him struck out, so the game was finally over.

Phil hustled to grab his bag and be out of the dugout so he could meet Dan, but his coach caught him before he could leave. “Lester, I need to talk to you.”

Once he heard those words, Phil figured he was screwed. He was probably going to be chewed out for almost being late for the game again, and his coach liked to yell when criticising his players. Phil didn’t take criticism well to begin with, but it was even harder for him when it was being fed to him by a shouting coach.

“There’s a game this Saturday and I need you to be there. I told the rest of the team about it before we started today, but you weren’t there, and I needed you to know about it. There’s going to be a scout for the Dodgers there, and I think you have a good shot at being selected for their team next spring,” his coach said to him. It wasn’t what Phil was expecting, but he would rather have been yelled at than be told he has to play on Saturday.

“Coach, I can’t be there on Saturday. It’s my three year anniversary with my boyfriend and we already have plans,” Phil replied. He and Dan had been together since Phil’s second and Dan’s first year of college, and now Phil was a senior and Dan was a junior.

His coach began to argue, “But Lester this a big…” but then he trailed off as if thinking about something, “you have a boyfriend?”

Phil raised his eyebrows, bewildered at the fact that there was someone on his University campus that didn’t know he and Dan were together. “Yeah, like I said, we’ve been together for three years. I’m always late to our games because we always spend time together on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. How did you not know this?”

His coach looked taken aback. “I’m not sure. I don’t really pay close attention to my player’s personal lives,” he tried to justify. “Anyways, I’m sorry, Lester, but I need you at this game. You’re one of my most important players and I can’t afford to not have you at a game like this one.” Phil shook his head. He’d never missed a game in his four years of being on this team, so he should damn well have one break. Most of the other players on the team has missed multiple games and Coach had been fine with it!

“No. I’m not going. I have plans and I don’t want to miss out on this time with Dan,” Phil answered simply. He wasn’t going to negotiate missing his anniversary. “Besides, just about every other player on the team has missed at least one game, but I’ve never missed one in my entire four year career on this team!”

Coach rubbed his hand over his face. “Lester, I understand that you want to spend time with your sweetheart, I really do. I also understand that you’ve never missed a game, and I’m very grateful for that,” he reasoned. “If this were any other game, I’d have no problem with you not being there. But this one is very important, and you’re arguably my best player. If you do well, you have a wide-open shot at becoming a player for the Dodgers!”

Phil was silent for a moment. He understood all of this, but he had plans for the future, and those plans involved staying with Dan and not becoming a professional baseball player. “Coach, I don’t think I want to play for the Dodgers, or any other ball team. I want to be able to settle down and get married and start a family, and if I were to be an MLB player I wouldn’t be able to do that for a long time, if ever. I don’t care if there’s a scout there, because I’m probably going to say no if they ask me to join their team anyways.”

There was a long pause in the conversation after Phil had said that. It seemed that Coach was pondering what to say to that. “Alright,” he finally said, “if that’s what you want, then I’ll respect that. Even so, it’s an important game nonetheless, and I still really want you there, Lester. Despite being a good player, you’re also a good teammate. You have the ability to boost everyone’s morale and make them perform to the best of their ability. You’re valuable to our team not only as a player but also as a teammate, and everyone else on the team would have a hard time without you there to boost their spirits. I fully understand that you have other plans, but I really hope that you choose to play on Saturday, because just having you there will make everyone else play better, and it may give others a shot at becoming an MLB player if they wish to be one.”

While Phil had told himself that he wouldn’t negotiate his plans for Saturday, he found himself rethinking everything. Maybe there was some way that he could play for the team and still be with Dan for the majority of the day. He thought about it a bit more, and suddenly he got an idea. “Alright, Coach. I’m going to talk to my boyfriend about it a bit more, but I think you can plan on having me at the game on Saturday,” Phil announced.

His coach smiled and shook his hand firmly. “Thanks, Lester. The team is really going to miss you next year,” he said sincerely. Phil smiled at that before turning around and walking out of the diamond.

“Hey!” Dan called out as Phil walked toward where he was sitting on the bleachers. “What took you so long?” Phil usually left the field as quickly as he could manage so he could spend the rest of the evening with Dan, so it was unusual for him to spend so long in the diamond.

Phil sat next to Dan on the bleachers. “Coach wanted to talk to me,” he answered, looking into his boyfriend’s brown eyes. His heart fluttered, because even after three years, he still melted every time he looked into those milk chocolate eyes. “He wants me to play a game on Saturday.”

Dan raised his eyebrows. “But that’s our anniversary, isn’t it?” Dan said, a little confused. He and Phil had already made plans to spend the day together and have dinner that evening, and Dan hoped that Phil hadn’t cancelled those plans without talking to him about it first.

“Yeah, it is. I’ve got an idea, though, and I’m really hoping it’s going to work,” Phil assured Dan. As they began their walk back to Phil’s dorm, he filled Dan in on what he had in mind. Dan actually thought it was a fairly decent idea, so he agreed to try it. Dan didn’t have quite as much faith in it as Phil did, but he decided that even if it didn’t work out and Phil still had to play the entire game, they still had the rest of the day to spend together.

{Flash Forward to Saturday}

It was Dan and Phil’s three year anniversary, and up until about 5:30 in the afternoon, they had spent the entire day together. They had gone out for lunch at a small café and walked around town while window shopping and generally enjoying each other’s company.

Now, though, it was nearly six o’clock and Phil’s baseball game was about to start. He had worked things out with his coach so that he wasn’t supposed to be in the game much at all; he was last on the batting list and he wasn’t even in the field at all. This would only change if their team was in danger of losing the game, which hopefully wouldn’t happen.

Phil had set out a blanket on the grass just outside of the opening in the fence that led to the field, in a place where they were out of the way but also close enough to the game that Phil could easily go in in case he was needed.

Dan and Phil were sitting next to each other on the blanket that Phil had set out and eating the picnic dinner that the two had prepared earlier that day. Their original plan had been to go to a high-end restaurant for dinner, but since Phil was needed at the game, they settled for a picnic. Dan thought that he probably preferred a picnic dinner at a baseball field for dinner rather than a fancy, expensive dinner at a restaurant that he didn’t feel he belonged at.

Dan shook his head as he swallowed a strawberry. “I really can’t believe that you managed to pull this off. We always could have done something tomorrow, you know,” he said, looking at his boyfriend.

Phil shrugged. “We could’ve, but I wanted today to be really special. I mean, we’ve been together for three years already, which is longer than the majority of couples our age, and I wanted to celebrate that with you because they’ve been the best years of my life.”

Dan rolled his eyes and swatted Phil’s shoulder playfully. “You and I both know that the real reason you did this is because you wanted to prove that you could actually pull it off after PJ laughed in your face when you told him about it,” he objected, shoving another strawberry into his mouth.

Before Phil could protest, his coach came round the corner of the dugout. They were a little more than halfway through the game, and Phil was hoping that he would be able to make it through the whole game without having to play, but that was proved unattainable when his coach said, “Lester, we need you out there. We’re losing at 9 to 0.” When Phil looked at his coach, he could tell that he hadn’t wanted to call on Phil to play. When he had called Coach to ask if they could arrange for him to play as little as possible and told him about the idea he had to be at the game and still be with Dan at the same time, his coach seemed very touched at the fact that he wanted to make everything work out.

“Alright,” Phil nodded, “I’ll be right out.” He looked to his boyfriend, who smiled sympathetically and kissed his cheek. Dan motioned for him to leave, and Phil apologised before grabbing his glove and heading out to his usual position at first base.

The game had ended with Phil’s team pulling ahead and winning by two points. After Phil had come out onto the field, everyone seemed to have more faith in themselves and ultimately played better. Phil hadn’t seen it before, but after what his coach had told him on Thursday evening and seeing what happened today, realised that he really did have a big impact on his team. That idea made him feel pretty darn good because he was actually making a difference with just his presence, but it made him guilty that he wouldn’t be playing next year.

After the game, he made his way back to Dan and they packed up together. Phil apologised over and over, despite the fact that Dan kept telling him that he wasn’t mad and to stop apologising because it wasn’t his fault.

As they were leaving the ballpark, a woman in a tight bun and a notebook in her hand approached them. “Are you Phil Lester?” she asked. Phil nodded. “Great! I was watching you play, and I very confused as to why you weren’t playing at the beginning of the game because you were very good! Anyways, my name is Becky Matthews, and I’m a talent scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers. After seeing you play today, Phil, I’d like to offer you a place on the team next spring.”

Dan raised his eyebrows and looked at Phil with a huge grin on his face. Phil hadn’t told Dan that there would be a scout here, mostly because he didn’t really care. Phil looked at the ground, considering his decision briefly before answering, “I’m flattered, Becky, but I’m afraid that I don’t really want to pursue a professional career in baseball.” Both Dan and Becky looked shocked at this. Dan knew how much Phil loved baseball and never thought that he would pass up an opportunity to make a living by playing it. He knew that Phil already had a job as an Animal Therapist lined up for when he graduated Uni, but he figured that Phil would choose baseball first.

“May I ask why not?” Becky wondered, probably not used to being turned down like this. Dan nodded, staring at him like he was speaking Sanskrit.

Phil glanced over at Dan for a moment before responding, “I’ve got other things I want to do with my life. I want to buy a house and get married and start a family and just be a regular person, but I couldn’t do that as a professional ball player, at least not for a long time. Baseball has been my past, but I don’t want it to be my future.”

He felt Dan take his hand, so he looked over to see him beaming at Phil, his brown eyes shimmering with sunlight and happiness. Phil squeezed his hand before returning his attention to the scout before him.

“I understand,” Becky said, visibly trying to hold back a smile at the two of them. “If you change your mind, give me a call.” She handed him her business card and walked away. Phil was almost positive he would never look at the business card again, but he put it in his pocket anyways.

“I can’t believe you just turned down an opportunity to play for the LA Dodgers,” Dan mused. The pair began to slowly make their way down the path that led to Phil’s dorm building.

“Like I said, I want to be able to settle down and enjoy my family, and I can’t do that if I’m on a busy athlete’s schedule,” Phil explained, swing his and Dan’s conjoined hands between them. “I love baseball, but I love you more, and I want to be able to give you all of me.” At those words, Dan blushed and looked at the ground, smiling widely.

“I’m really sorry that I had to leave our picnic to go play, by the way,” Phil told Dan once again.

Dan rolled his eyes and stopped walking. He turned to Phil and said, “Stop apologising for that! I didn’t mind it at all, and it wasn’t even your fault to begin with, so you have nothing to apologise for.” Dan wrapped an arm around Phil’s neck and ran the other hand slowly down his chest. “Besides, we still have the rest of the night to celebrate,” he purred, his voice low and sultry.

He looked up at Phil, who raised his eyebrows and smirked slightly. He didn’t say anything back, but he didn’t need to. He shrugged Dan’s arm off his shoulders and grasped his hand once more. They set off towards Phil’s dorm, their pace much quicker now.


End file.
